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Wow! I can’t believe this is happening, but I’ve actually won a brand new Astra!!!!
Wow! I can’t believe this is happening, but I’ve actually won a brand new Astra!!!! (Click here to see announcement)
I’m amazed at how fast all of this happened and still am in shock! It all started back in June when my family and our neighbors (Ken & Chris Pauley) were headed up to the Sacramento Horse Expo. Ken came across a story in AutoWeek that mentioned this contest Saturn was starting, called Kiss My Astra. The Pauleys raise miniature donkeys and thought it would be fun to get a donkey (aka Ass) in the photo to do a play on words. During the whole trip we were all trying to come up with creative ways to do the photo and were already thinking of ways to get all of our friends to vote for us. When we finally came up with the trade-in idea, the next step was figuring out how to get the dealer to let us bring the donkeys to the showroom!
Luckily for all of us, we were already happy Saturn customers. Chris Pauley and I both have 2008 Saturn Vue’s that we purchased through Ron Ryan at Saturn of Capitol Expressway. So we called up Ron and told him our idea and he loved it,
without skipping a beat he said bring’em down! We decided to bring two donkeys to the dealer in case one was uncooperative and things did not go well. Before the road trip, both donkeys had nice baths and we tried out some photos in the Pauley’s driveway with their Saturn Vue, so things would go quickly at the dealer. It was quite an amazing sight to see a couple donkeys inside the dealership, even the neighboring car dealers could not believe what they were seeing. Thankfully both donkeys performed perfectly and we had many photos to choose from, 
but in the end, Poppy is the miniature donkey that took the best photo with me! We then submitted the photo and waited to find out if we made the top 20....
Once the news came that the photo made the top twenty, emails were sent to everyone we knew to vote for our photo. We had been planning for some time who we would email but once voting began the list of people and groups just seemed to grow over the two weeks of voting. As the competition heated up, we’d re-send messages out to make sure the voting continued! Over time our friends and families were forwarding it off to their friends and families and so on…
It was sent to our local neighborhood email list, to local 4-H clubs, to all of our family and co-workers. Ken sent it to A LOT of people at Cisco where he works, friends sent it to various groups they belong to, photo clubs, car clubs, any club we belonged to and ones that our friends belong to (a coworker of Ken's sent it to an ATV list he belongs to with about 7,000 members)! It even made it to TV Horse Source and our local newspaper, the Gilroy Dispatch published it three times during the voting period! The voting turned into a community effort and by the end of the voting period we were hearing from people we hadn’t seen in years or ever even met!
The Pauley’s have refused to actually trade-in their donkey, instead we are trading up! Trading up to a Saturn Outlook that is! As I mentioned, I already have a Saturn Vue but my Mom really needs a new car! Her 16 year old Chevy Astro Van with over 200,000 miles finally died in September, so the timing is perfect! Going from an Astro to an Astra seemed appropriate, but our family is all quite tall – I am 6'3" and my Dad is 6’7”! When my Mom buys a car, other than it being a Saturn, the most important feature is that we all fit in the car. And the great people at Saturn are allowing us to pay the difference to get a brand new Saturn Outlook which has plenty of room for the family! Even Poppy, who is 32 inches tall, can ride in it now!
We can’t wait to get the new vehicle and I want to thank EVERYONE for all of the voting that you did to help us win this car. I’ll post photos as soon as possible!
THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!!!
Dana & Poppy
I’m amazed at how fast all of this happened and still am in shock! It all started back in June when my family and our neighbors (Ken & Chris Pauley) were headed up to the Sacramento Horse Expo. Ken came across a story in AutoWeek that mentioned this contest Saturn was starting, called Kiss My Astra. The Pauleys raise miniature donkeys and thought it would be fun to get a donkey (aka Ass) in the photo to do a play on words. During the whole trip we were all trying to come up with creative ways to do the photo and were already thinking of ways to get all of our friends to vote for us. When we finally came up with the trade-in idea, the next step was figuring out how to get the dealer to let us bring the donkeys to the showroom!
Luckily for all of us, we were already happy Saturn customers. Chris Pauley and I both have 2008 Saturn Vue’s that we purchased through Ron Ryan at Saturn of Capitol Expressway. So we called up Ron and told him our idea and he loved it,
without skipping a beat he said bring’em down! We decided to bring two donkeys to the dealer in case one was uncooperative and things did not go well. Before the road trip, both donkeys had nice baths and we tried out some photos in the Pauley’s driveway with their Saturn Vue, so things would go quickly at the dealer. It was quite an amazing sight to see a couple donkeys inside the dealership, even the neighboring car dealers could not believe what they were seeing. Thankfully both donkeys performed perfectly and we had many photos to choose from, 
but in the end, Poppy is the miniature donkey that took the best photo with me! We then submitted the photo and waited to find out if we made the top 20....Once the news came that the photo made the top twenty, emails were sent to everyone we knew to vote for our photo. We had been planning for some time who we would email but once voting began the list of people and groups just seemed to grow over the two weeks of voting. As the competition heated up, we’d re-send messages out to make sure the voting continued! Over time our friends and families were forwarding it off to their friends and families and so on…
It was sent to our local neighborhood email list, to local 4-H clubs, to all of our family and co-workers. Ken sent it to A LOT of people at Cisco where he works, friends sent it to various groups they belong to, photo clubs, car clubs, any club we belonged to and ones that our friends belong to (a coworker of Ken's sent it to an ATV list he belongs to with about 7,000 members)! It even made it to TV Horse Source and our local newspaper, the Gilroy Dispatch published it three times during the voting period! The voting turned into a community effort and by the end of the voting period we were hearing from people we hadn’t seen in years or ever even met!The Pauley’s have refused to actually trade-in their donkey, instead we are trading up! Trading up to a Saturn Outlook that is! As I mentioned, I already have a Saturn Vue but my Mom really needs a new car! Her 16 year old Chevy Astro Van with over 200,000 miles finally died in September, so the timing is perfect! Going from an Astro to an Astra seemed appropriate, but our family is all quite tall – I am 6'3" and my Dad is 6’7”! When my Mom buys a car, other than it being a Saturn, the most important feature is that we all fit in the car. And the great people at Saturn are allowing us to pay the difference to get a brand new Saturn Outlook which has plenty of room for the family! Even Poppy, who is 32 inches tall, can ride in it now!
We can’t wait to get the new vehicle and I want to thank EVERYONE for all of the voting that you did to help us win this car. I’ll post photos as soon as possible!
THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!!!
Dana & Poppy
Tags: astra, contest, donkey, kiss my astra, poppy
Comment
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Comment by JASON J. on November 14, 2008 at 11:39pm - Congratulations to you and your family. It's a great story of how you put it all together to take the prize. We look forward to seeing more from you and your new vehicle, please keep us posted. Best wishes and great job! jason and family.
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Comment by Joel on October 29, 2008 at 3:26pm - Congratulations!
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Comment by Steve Janisse on October 29, 2008 at 1:13pm - Great story -- nice going, Dana! Very creative. Very cool. Congratulations -- you deserve it!
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Comment by Rob on October 29, 2008 at 8:33am - Congratulations Dana!
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